part 2
What does penance have to do with forgiveness? Is it not true that once a person is forgiven there is no need for anything else?
There is need for penance, for our God is a God of justice
Penance is sorrow for having sinned and making amends for the sin.
“Be converted, and do **penance **for all your iniquities. . . . Cast away from you all your transgressions . . . and make to yourselves a new heart, and a new spirit” (Ezekiel 18:30-31; cf. Joel, 2:12; Jeremiah 8:6). In the same spirit St. John the Baptist exhorts his hearers: “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of
penance” (Matthew 3:8). Such too is the teaching of Christ as expressed in the parables of the Prodigal Son and of the Publican;
Same questions as the previous ones.
see post below
Lets take a couple. Prayed to and her assumption.
Actually, when one says “I prayed to Mary” it means asking her intercession. Such as when I ask you to pray for me. She is after all the mother of God! Catholics are not required to practice intercessory prayer, but it is a tradition of 2,000 years.
The Assumption is mentioned in the sermons of St. Andrew of Crete, St. John Damascene, St. Modestus of Jerusalem and others. In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (De gloria mart., I, iv) mentions it first. St. John of Damascus (P. G., I, 96) thus formulates the tradition of the Church of Jerusalem: (Google for detail of St Andrew, et al).
Also, look to catacombes for paintings and writings describing veneration of Mary since the earliest Christians. In this time of veneration of bones of martyred Christians, no relics o Mary have ever been found.
It is a remission of punishment due to sin.
II Maccabees 12:40-46
40
But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear.
So it was clear to all that this was why these men had been slain.
41
They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.
42
7 Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas warned the soldiers to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.
43
**He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; **44
for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death.
45
But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.
46
**Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from **this sin.
If you study what Paul taught about leadership in I Timothy 3 you will find that he exhorts married men to be leaders. In fact he uses their status as fathers in families and how they manage them as a criteria for leadership.
Paul nor Jesus ever mandate celibacy as a requirement for leadership.
You are correct but married men can be Deacons. But at this time Latin Rite practices celibacy. It is not a doctrine.
This is not true. The OT scriptures predate the church and the oral teachings of Christ which would be scripture in oral form predates the church.
Yes, but how was it decided which writings were inspired? There are more than 4 Gospels: Protoevengelium of James, Thomas, etc. Also, OT was not set in stone either. In 90 AD, the Jews decided to throw out some books because they couldn’t find Hebrew texts. Fragments of those texts in Hebrew have since been found in Qumran.
Where did Jesus ever make such a promise? If anything He and His apostles warned that false teachers would come into the church and decieve many.
Yes, but CC is not one of them, see Matthew 28:20
Again Jesus never promised the church would not err. Read the first 3 chapters of Revelation and He rebukes a couple of churches for being in error.
There were some heretics around then, yes.
But thats just me, I trust God to not lead me astray.